I have just discovered something about the man i am about to marry...

[upsydaisy1974]

I have had reason to think that all is not as it seems lately and I have just checked my partners spare mobile phone and I have found that he has created an entry in the address book with my name on it and has put the contact number as the spare phone. He has been sending absolutely filthy messages to his own phone, but obviously as my name is in the address book it comes up as from me. The same messages are in the sent box and in box. He is sending them to himself. How the hell do i deal with this?

Ooid, you might well be completely comfortable with your husband's prevarications but I think I would find it deeply unsettling to live with.

It's a matter of personal limits I think.

Setting up an account on a sex website, and texting sex messages to yourself goes further than being "childish and unpleasant" in my view. They haven't even got to the wedding yet.

There is no point arguing over what each poster feels is acceptable within a relationship because this isn't anything to do with how WE FEEL.

This is all about the OP and how she feels at the moment.

AS it stands she's not even discussed the matter with her partner so it's completely out of order for to carry out a complete character assignation.

Let's hope they sort it out without hysteria.

assassination

Bloody phone.

No of course, but I don't think anyone has?

here's one comment ingrid

'Also, that you are a strong, intelligent woman makes you a worthy target for this particular kind of bastard.'

Hope all goes well

my ex kept some of his "sexual preferences" hidden until after we had been married a few months, which i found really unfair,and it was a huge shock to me, keeping things hidden from your future spouse is shitty and doesn't bode well for the future IMO

Dang, I meant sociopath and not psychopath. My bad. All that talk of gaslighting (which incidentally I too have some experience of, and if it turns out to be so, then kudos to you all for spotting it, but...).

Anyway, which one of us has not done something they shouldn't have, and then thought of how to pretend - as much to ourselves as to anyone else - that it wasn't that bad or that it even didn't happen? I think it's a human trait. I think it's unfortunate if it's to do with drugs and porn and of course that is unsettling and not to be trivialised completely, but also if it happened and if it's true that he's stopped then it's not exactly pitchfork fodder YET.

Wise words Ooid

Fair enough Thingumy, if someone said that. Though perhaps it was intended in a context of 'he could be this kind of b*stard', not that he definitly is, iyswim. I don't know, I'm sure it's down thread somewhere.

Ooid, yes it can be natural to want to lie to cover oneself but seriously that doesn't make it Ok to do so.

I really encourage my children to tell the truth even when they have done something bad - becauseit's worse to lie about it. So I couldn't be with a man who lied to protect himself.

Everyone makes mistakes, it's how you handle them that counts and putting your hands up and apologising is the way to go, generally speaking, if you're a mature adult.

and fwiw no one said sociopath, either. What exactly are you referring to? There's only one match for that word on this page and it's in your post.

What is gaslighting if not a sociopathic trait?

Well it's psychological abuse. Just because a lot of sociopaths use it, it doesn't mean that everyone who uses it is a sociopath.

Fair enough.

The phrase adds new meaning to the film Fanny by Gaslight

It is used in reference to the 1944 film called 'Gaslight'.

Here

It's interesting to read the synopsis. And please excuse my fringe.

Well now I don't know how on earth I am gonna handle this one.

He text me earlier as he is working. I am clearly not my usual bubbly self and I'm not one of those that can easily hide my true feelings.

I replied simply saying that I was feeling ok but that I would talk to him later tonight.

He replied saying that I had fallen into a trail that lets him know I am snooping on him etc etc.

After the internet incident I admit I did root around to see what I could discover. He knows that I was checking up on him late last year as I was honest about it and told him straight. I looked at his bank statements and mobile phone. He knew about it and I just said that I needed totally transparency in order to get the trust back. Wrong I know but at least I had the courage of my convictions to state what I had done.

So ok, maybe, although I very much doubt if he set a trap sending the messages to himself on the spare phone to see if I would find them BUT if you were setting a trap you wouldn't do it on two ocassions and have sent several messages that were so explicit (as these are).

In total he sent about 6 on 6 January and 3 last Saturday. That doesn't seem to be like a trap to me.

After his text about the trail I simply replied that we must be talking about cross purposes and what was he going on about. Trap - what trap and asked him straight what had he done.

After that last text he has gone quiet. I think he has now dropped himself in it.

I know this looks like I am playing games with him, I am NOT. I just simply want to get to the bottom of this.

I can now only put his silence down to the fact that he is trying to come up with a line to support his trap theory without telling about the texts and he still thinks I don't know - YET.

I have a feeling there maybe fireworks here tonight. I WILL NOT be made a mug of by another man!

Hope you are all having a better day than I am. x

Upsy, I absolutely believe that you're not playing games with him. However, he's sure as hell playing games with you.

Sorry to hear about this latest development - in general I'm reluctant to engage in 'conspiracy theories' by strangers on a board but really, there's an awful lot of sense talked in your thread by people who know. Please, take good care of yourself.

It sounds like he is playing games on or with you, and you're responding in an honest and straightforward way.

How bizarre to have set a trap for you, to see if you are snooping on him.

I really would be legging it out of this 'relationship' as fast as possible. I'm sorry you are going through this shit.

Oh God, he reckons he's setting traps for you???
That's quite clever actually. Now, every time you DO find something untoward, he can pass it off as a "trap" that he had intentionally set.

Did he say trap or trail? If it's the latter, what an odd choice of word. People lay trails and set traps at the end of them, or along the way.

Transparent invasions of privacy with his full knowledge and permission are not wrong, but are not terribly efficient if you were looking for current evidence, rather than past misdemeanours that in all probability were completely erased.

However, it does sound as though he has been playing mind games with you and once again, you've allowed him to form his defence before seeing you face to face. I cannot imagine however what defence someone can form for laying trails or setting traps in this context, so he's going to have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag for this one.

Exactly, he reckons "setting traps" is his defence (for what we do not yet know)
BUt how do you defend setting traps then?